As we move deeper into the 21st century, global expansion of organizations, continuing growth of large cities and disappearance of small cities and communities become faster and greater in scale. One of the consequences of globalization is that communication between single individuals, groups of individuals and organizations become less and less personalized. Furthermore, the globalized world creates problems for individuals and organizations to identify themselves in a host of available options, outline the scope of their interests and associate themselves with appropriate individuals and organizations. There is a growing need for personalization in communication and work. One reflection of this need is a rapid growth of internet-based social networking and its use for targeted advertising and recommendations.
The Internet is a powerful tool for social networking. It helps people form groups centred on social connections between individuals who know each other, which in the past might be held only within the confines of social or organizational settings, such as family, school, community center, private club, or the like. The Internet is also one of the most popular sources for obtaining and sharing information.
One popular activity associated with the Internet is communication between people, and notably people who may be separated by vast distances. Some familiar technologies that facilitate communication and involve the Internet include email, bulletin boards, virtual chat rooms, blogs, instant message systems, Internet-based social communications facilities, and the like. This set of technologies, and those that are similar, are characterized by being substantially solely on-line.
In other words, the foregoing set of well-known Internet related applications supports geographically distributed communications, and does not have anything further as their objective.
In spite of the increased ability to communicate online, many people are still interested in meeting together in person with other people who are interested in the same topic, event, and the like. Further, there is a huge need to have knowledge of “true” interests of people locally within geographical areas to achieve more effective target-oriented distribution of goods and recommendations, rational planning and efficient performance of community services, successful arrangement of urban events and developments, which would reflect the interests and needs of local individuals. None of the existing internet-based systems are fully suitable to satisfy this need and solve the latter problems.
The Internet based social networks have been used for targeted advertising by different commercial and non-commercial organizations. However, the poorly defined interest groups and lack of tips to concrete local socio-geographical environment of the user decrease efficiency of the social networks-based targeted advertising.
The Internet also provides some location-based websites based on hardware for mobile devices. These websites, such as Foursquare, typically allow connecting registered users with friends and update their location: the users who “check-in” at venues can chose to have their check-ins posted on their accounts or on other websites, such as Twitter, Facebook, or both. Users can create a “To Do” list for their private use and add “Tips” to venues that other users can read. These may serve as suggestions for real-world local gatherings and indications of interests of the user. However, it cannot give any real tips concerning the real scope of interests of the user. Therefore, there is no opportunity for a stranger, who can read one's “To Do” list, to find out whether gatherings at the “Tipped” venues would really bring him together with individuals of a similar range of interests, and there is no chance for an advertising company to identify the target user correctly.